Smith Preparatory Academy

Establishing a community of virtuous scholars who advance God’s Kingdom locally and throughout the world.

Our commitment to a Christian classical paradigm and the dignity of the human being results in a robust philosophy of education centered on the formation of the whole person. The poet T.S. Eliot once asked, “Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?” It is helpful to think of classical education as an answer to Eliot’s lament. The stages of a classical education move students through the accumulation of information to the formation of knowledge, which is then directed toward the pursuit of wisdom through the cultivation of eloquence. Educational reformers of various stripes have insisted on opposing the mastery of content to critical thinking or the acquisition of skills, and they pay no attention to beauty or wisdom. Classical education recognizes the value of each and incorporates them all into a model that seeks to cultivate informed, thoughtful, and articulate students.